00:01Took Spire Battleships. Unlocked engineers II, scouts II, decloakers, tachyon turrets I and II, OCStation Warp Jammer. Left with 750K.Nomad 2 is started adjacent to homeworld and lightly defended. Plan is to raid the adjacent alarm and capture it before it goes away.

18:50Took down the alarm overlooking Nomad 2 with one Raider SShip MkI. Triggered and handled.Handled first two waves with some turrets.Nomad 2 captured with Warp Jammer.Unlocked FField MkII, put one on Nomad 2 and one over the Home OCStation.Plan is to use a lot of missile frigates (defended by some fighters) because the cloaked ships are mostly vulnerables to missiles.

29:39The EtherJet DBackup is adjacent to my homeworld, and I need some more HaP to download it. I tried to take down an alarm with a Raider SShip MkI but failed, so I unlocked the MkII design, albeit I haven't the metal to build it yet.

37:48Blown up a DNode to speed up this too slow early game.Carved a Tachyon-path and sent a science MkII on a CSG-Aprime planet two hops away from home. ARS contains Mini Ram, Teleporting Leech and Powerslaver. The ram will be ignored. I still hesitate between taking the TeLeech and corrupting the DBackup when I'll find it, or take the mighty powerslaver. The DBackup download would be delayed.

46:05Took the planet behind my homeworld.Now I have enough HaP to download the EtherJet DBackup.I have also enough energy to support a MkII raider. Built thanks to the DNode. Alarm 2 hops away took down.

51:43Fire (hacked planet belongs to it) has Raptors. Excellent combo with stealth, very "painful-themed".Anyway, EtherJet downloaded. If it wasn't on my mission list, I wouldn't have downloaded them, rather corrupted. "Pushing me out of my tracks": check!

1:00:00HaP: 33AIP: 83Knowledge: 8,750 (total available)Empire: 4 planets are under control (1 home, 1 nomad, plus 2 other) all on extern ring. Bridge to ring II half-controled.Unlocks: WJammer, Engi II, scouts II, Tachyon turrets I and II, decloaker, FField II, Raid SShip IIMetal is still low, but I'm using the missile-immune Raid SShip to get rid of the MkIII missile guard posts (the Ions are already down) before the hack. It is doing wonders and I ordered the building of the two remaining. However, there is a fortress MkII; I plan to avoid it during the hack. (This planet also belongs to Fire.)On the longer term, I see no AIP reducers (just a distant CoProc), but I only scouted 22 planets so far. I'll need to go archipelago sooner or latter, and I feel AIP will force me to go for it rather sooner. This would be the middle game begining. For now, focus is on the opening.

1:05:09Two waves on the backyard; delay between each: 1:30. Fleet sent on defence, remaining metal and energy allowed to emergency turret building. However, one howstile wormhole is quite easy easy to defend, albeit the distance hostile wormhole / OCStation + friendly wormhole is rather short.On the other side, two Heavy Bomber SShips have been allowed to A-prime neutering. I hope to launch the hack shortly after the two waves.

1:12:26Waves handeled: check.Polycristal SShips bombers on the fortress: check.Hunter/Killer unexpectedly spawning there: check. What?!?Yap. I have only MkI fleet and barely no starship support (just the raiders, the two bombers and the two cheap-but-awesome enclaves) and I have a H/K denying my neutering. It is alone (a handful of riot control was busted earlier), but the whole balance just changed from "everything under control" to "we're doooomed" in a blink.What to do? Fallback, wait for it to leave and go back to business? I may neuter the other side of the ring-bridge, but this A-prime planet was my very first target. Or go Red.Queen style and sent it an armored warhead. 3 AIP for this? I'll fall back and resort to it if they let me no choice. Also, I don't have the metal for the ArmoredWH yet.01:13:03Oh, Ice too is sending a H/K. Sweet! I wondered if luring Fire's one with the raiders while the bombers finish the fortress, but now I doubt.01:16:28A-prime is neutered, excluding a SSSphere. The twin H/K were so focused on the raiders it was easy to let the bombers achieve the fortress. Now everyone is in friendly space and the H/K stoped (difficulty 7/7, such a great idea).Well, immediate plan is to go neuter the RingII bridge end and wait for enough metal for a warhead. On the paper, a MkI ArmoredWH is able to take down two H/K at once. Let's suppose it'll do it on the field.01:17:54An impressive amount of disassemblers came dancing around the furthest wormhole and followed the H/K in the fog of war. Just to let me know that my little H/K waltz wasn't meant to last long. Dully noted. Plan is to wait for AT LEAST one armored WH.How is that possible. I hope I wouldn't have to send a pair of warheads each hour because it would cost me much more than the planned auto AIP. Maybe a full SF guardposts hunting is going to be planned. I just discovered an AdvSsConstructor and checked the K-price for the MkIII raid SShips.However, the ASC is on the extern ring, 3 hops past the A-prime I'm trying to get and 1 hop after a second A-prime. With no bridge to RingII there, it would be easy to defend this territory, but with every planets MkIII on the road and MkIV for the ASC, it'll be a hard trip. Maybe I'll take this adjacent A-prime, dig a bit in the rings, and come back to this when I'll have more Knowledge and Metal.

1:34:17Nomad 2 received a space dock with loop order on scout II. A good piece of the west of RingII and RingIII are under scouting range. Data is being processed... please wait.The other side of the bridge is almost neutered.Adjacent A-prime is gate-raided because my planet adjacent to it is also the friendly side of the bridge, so now I've only one wormhole to fortify.Starship bait is too easy: a MkIII siege SShip was threatening my three raiders; I separated them, spoted the one the siege was targeting, sent it to the edge of the planet and the two others were peacefully killing the missile guard posts. I bet there is something to improvements on the AI to deny such micro.I hope the SF is on the other side of the ring, because I just launched the 10 minutes RRedirection hacking. I now have enough for an armored WH.My raiders are stirring the AI on the RingII in the hope of luring the SF to go after them; while I control one side of the nearest RingI-RingII bridge, FS woun't be able to go after these two targets.

1:38:41Hack has still 5:30 to go. Disassembler armada (8 MkI, 8 MkIII) is bursting on A-prime. I was shorter than expected on metal and was unable to prepare a warhead. Plan is to fallback, let the hacker go alone under the cloak, and hope for no tachyon reprisal.

1:40:07Sent scouts MkI one hop after A-prime. The twin H/K crossed the wormhole back and forth and cross pathes with 11 riot control starships on their way back. Invisible hacking response is packing on A-prime. Plan is to come back for them once SF are enough away.

1:40:55F! Tachyon radiation hit five seconds ago. EtherJets were unable to grab the offending fleet fast enough. Plan is to try again with a true warhead, this time.

1:44:06Nomad wormholes just changed. New scouted areas available.Guess what's after the MkIV with the ASC? a MkIII world with a DGLair.However, 5 Data Centers are in 3 hops at worst from Nomad 2. The raiders made the trip from home to Nomad 2 and are ready for a little AIP hammering.Insignifiant waves hit my backwater world. I made some reinforcing but my energy balance now displays 0.Maybe I'll take the other side of the bridge. It's clear from alarms and one step toward the core. At least SF are way too far from it to defend it.

1:45:17The bridge side on RingII is now neutral. On the destruction of the OCStation, the AI droped a "look behind you" as the whole hack response team invaded the friendly side of the bridge on RingI... by the undefended wormhole because of the gateraid. Silly me...1:45:58Vampire claws rushed the energy generator. FField is down, OCStation follow, I hear the shark roars and realize EtherJets are useless without energy. Great... At least, all wormholes at home are still fully armored.1:46:34My fleet crossed the bridge again and came helping the turrets on RingI. AI fleet tried to flee by the other wormhole, the defended one. Needless to say that none made it to RingII.No shark wave? Oh, maybe I didn't turned it on, this time... So bad...1:47:3517 (hand-counted) missile guardians are chasing the DataCenters' raiders. My multitasking is proving good enough to outmaster the SF one. They outweight me in sheer firepower, but... it feels good to know you're not behind your opponent on every topic.1:48:18Arh! Ice just hit the just rebuilt station on RingI bridge; energy was back but the FField wasn't rebuilt yet. Teleporters let no chance to it. The total fight lasted less than 30 seconds, but already the target is down and the offending fleet is ashes. Damn'it! With no energy my back is exposed (no FF, no tractor turrets) and the waves already targeting it are about to dig my energy dept deeper!Okay, maybe the AI isn't that bad at multitasking either.With again 100 and so seconds before rebuilding, I'd better build 3 metal converters at home. The warhead building isn't ordered yet and I still have 1,000,000 metal waiting. So be it: energy for defense instead of metal for H/K twins.1:49:00Oh, the raiders are immune to the guardians' missiles. They finished their mission untouched (almost).Total AIP: 109AIP Reduction: 100AIP Floor: 21At least there is something good.1:49:45The H/K twins are passing by RingII-bridge. They are 5 planets ahead of the missile guardians (which are the slower of the SF, if I remember correctly)... but moving toward them. I try to plot their path but found no logic. Maybe they try to put an end to my raids, but it's done. I just have to get my starships back home by RingI, or they'll cross the twin's path. Anyway, I dully note their current position and direction for latter use.1:50:20Oh! Guess what: the twins just changed their route and are now heading toward RingI-bridge. Plan is to let the now-powered back handle the last little wave and get everything back on RingI that just finished rebuild.I'm very very near the armored WH. I'll launch its construction and see...Arh! Energy won't do it. I'll need one more metal converter... Okay for one more metal converter. Go-go-go!O.o?!? 28 Engi MkII are poping an armored WH in... more than 2 minutes?!? We're doomed.1:50:44Ice H/K entered RingI. I repeat: H/K on RingI!1:50:53Fleet stand back! I said stand back!!They are heading toward the AI side of RingI, away from home. Keep your distances with intruders.FField, tractors and lightning didn't standed more that a handful of seconds. So much for turrets. At least the fleet is safe.1:51:27H/K twins passing by...Fire and Ice fleets hit one after the other. MkIII and IV on the field. OCStation assasinated by some stray infiltrators. Maybe it's time to rebuild it as a military OCS.1:53:06Back is holding nice, thanks to the metal converters.Disassembler fleet came after the twins and riot. They were scapegoat'ed and only 6 made it to the other wormhole.The warhead is 20 seconds from completion but metal is now failing. Plan is to cancel it and wait for brighter days.WHAT? I didn't get my metal back? IIRC, when I cancel a half-built starship, I get back all (I think) my metal. However, when I re-order an armored warhead construction, it starts at 20 seconds remaining (counting engineers). Well, so much for W.M.D. canceling.Three riot starships were late. None survived. I felt a bit guilty to bully the latecomers, but when I remember the twins passage, I don't any more.

2:16:00Raiders were neutering missile guard posts on RingIII near the bridges to the core. They were back home for some repairs when the twins came in the system they were hammering since roughly a quarter of an hour.Plan is to start again the redirection hack on RingI and hope it will be complete by the time they get around the galaxy. Just in case, the armored warhead is ready, now.However, with the hacker built a only the three raiders II, the two enclaves and one heavy bomber online, I'm left with only 208 energy! (Damn, the warhead use 50,000!)

2:23:31Hacking has 3:30 to go.10 marauders joined the hacking party. Tactical retreat was ordered to let the AI tank them.Reprisal waves on the bridge are slowly increasing. Nothing overwhelming due to low AIP, but while I lack energy, there is not enough turrets to let me safely ignoring it. However, a bunch of missile-imune vampires just warped in. Troubles incoming.Also, a bunch of disassemblers are currently under my fleet's fire. The twins were too far earlier but I expect some riot soon.I dispatched my raiders from the hack to go after the vampires. If the power generator falls, we would be in great trouble.2:23:48Damn! Vampires are fast! Maybe I should consider them better next time I find some in an ARS. So much for energy. Luckily, my metal is good enough to stand some conversion.2:25:24Vampires are gone, power generator is back online, metal converters were deactivated but one.Reprisal and regular waves are planed to hit the bridge just before the hack ends.Emergency turrets are ordered on the bridge, thanks to the remaining metal converter. I hope it will be enough to hold the waves until the hack completes and frees my fleet.Cheering up for Pablo Vegas: the music perfectly fits the fight!RingI and RingII are entirely scouted, thanks to Nomad 2 roaming along them. Good news: nothing of interest past the ASC; I won't need to sprawl to the other side of the galaxy. Bad news: only two CoProcessors have been scouted so far.2:26:12What the hell?!? The twins are here!!!Fall back! Load the warhead!2:27:42Twins are ashes!Hacking is complete!I delayed the warhead as much as I can to get the most ships under its impact zone. The twins, obviously, but I managed to get also all the final hacking response and half the riot starships. However, I'm left with barely no fleet, 11 riots and 17 missile guardians. And a big reprisal warning.Oh, and one reprisal wave was able to target my home. Maybe a warpgate guardian. Never mind, it's defended enough.Remaining metal converter supporting the warhead is set off. Little warhead ordered.2:29:24Total Special Forces escaping: 8 RiotCS and 18 MissileG.Home reprisal warped at the edge of the planetary area. Decloaker is ordered. Fleet on its way back. (The fleet get rebuilt pretty fast; I've got enough metal to support a MkI fleet.)

2:30:56Home wave was full of raptors and one siege starship. Easily handled, thanks to the decloaker.Some more disassemblers were coming late to see what's going on; at least 7 of them. Noted on the SF intel.However, the Fire just spawned a ZBombard Design Backup on the A-prime I just hacked. Are we out again? With 20 HaP for the first corruption, it's a yes. So sad I can't afford to download them.Two flagships added, heavy bomber not rebuilt. Energy balance at 8. (Yap, one digit energy balance.)

2:35:54Hacking triggered. I doubted because EtherJet somewhat counters ZBombard, but I let it go. After all, this is a hacking-themed game.The decloaker joined us. It wasn't intended but I'm glad to have it in my blob.

2:38:27Marauders backstabed the enclaves while I was microing the EtherJets: going forward while power-down and (moslty) cloaked, then powering up, grabbing everything from Fire's OCStation to my blob, ZBombard and other alike; then redo.Decloaker took down. Ordered a new one.Tiny waves hitting my fortified back. Never mind.

2:40:25ZBombard corrupted.Nomad 4 (IV; parasite eye) in range of Back.Reprisal 2 trigger on back.RingIII fully scouted: only interest is the Eye bot Backup, very lightly defended but has a DGLair and is adjacent to an Interplanetary MBooster on a side and a MkIV world on the other side. Good news: no eye there.There is a core Spire SShip near, also. We'll see.Oh, and Ice has infiltrators. I seems that each AI stores its own Backups on its own planets. I see Ice's infiltrator DBUp but not Fire"s one.However, one hop after A-prime there is an Alarm under a bunkerer's Translocator OCStation. I'll need to unlock raiders MkIII to take it down before I can take over that damn twice-hacked A-prime.

2:42:33Done. Cloaked Raid MkIII one-shoted the alarm without triggering it and was instantly pulled back.A-prime took over and CSG destroyed.ARS captured. I still hesitate between TLeech and PWlaver.Uhoh... Special Force doesn't want to let this act unpunished. It looks like I stored the little warhead a bit early!

2:43:37FField MkII midlife after only some hit of the missile guardians. These guys are to be underestimated under no circumstance.The warhead was unter said FField but wasn't useful, finally.

Had a feeling that was the most logical choice for bonus in this scenario.

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Plan is to use a lot of missile frigates (defended by some fighters) because the cloaked ships are mostly vulnerables to missiles.

Interesting, I never noticed that! This AAR is already educational.

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Anyway, EtherJet downloaded. If it wasn't on my mission list, I wouldn't have downloaded them, rather corrupted. "Pushing me out of my tracks": check!

My mission is accomplished then!

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Metal is still low, but I'm using the missile-immune Raid SShip to get rid of the MkIII missile guard posts (the Ions are already down) before the hack. It is doing wonders and I ordered the building of the two remaining.

Mk.II is a *huge* jump over Mk.I, possibly one of the biggest jumps in quality between tiers of anything I've seen.

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Hunter/Killer unexpectedly spawning there: check. What?!?Yap. I have only MkI fleet and barely no starship support (just the raiders, the two bombers and the two cheap-but-awesome enclaves) and I have a H/K denying my neutering. It is alone (a handful of riot control was busted earlier), but the whole balance just changed from "everything under control" to "we're doooomed" in a blink.

<cheers wildly while waving a little flag that says "Go H/k!">

These sudden reversals are one reason I love this game.

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What to do? Fallback, wait for it to leave and go back to business? I may neuter the other side of the ring-bridge, but this A-prime planet was my very first target. Or go Red.Queen style and sent it an armored warhead.

When is it the right time for an Armored warhead? Trick question, it is always the right time. Same for nukes.

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3 AIP for this? I'll fall back and resort to it if they let me no choice. Also, I don't have the metal for the ArmoredWH yet.

Drat!

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An impressive amount of disassemblers came dancing around the furthest wormhole and followed the H/K in the fog of war. Just to let me know that my little H/K waltz wasn't meant to last long. Dully noted. Plan is to wait for AT LEAST one armored WH.How is that possible. I hope I wouldn't have to send a pair of warheads each hour because it would cost me much more than the planned auto AIP.

Everything will be fiiiiine... Let those missiles fly, nothing will go wrong -- I promise...

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Maybe a full SF guardposts hunting is going to be planned. I just discovered an AdvSsConstructor and checked the K-price for the MkIII raid SShips.

Nope, that won't save you from the Hunter plot. The SF still gets comically huge. Watch out for the Missile guardians, they do insane damage!

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I hope the SF is on the other side of the ring, because I just launched the 10 minutes RRedirection hacking. I now have enough for an armored WH.

H/K1: "Hey I just remembered I need to be somewhere RIGHT NOW."H/K2: "Me too!"

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I was shorter than expected on metal and was unable to prepare a warhead.

<snaps fingers> Drat x2!

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F! Tachyon radiation hit five seconds ago. EtherJets were unable to grab the offending fleet fast enough. Plan is to try again with a true warhead, this time.

<giggle>

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The bridge side on RingII is now neutral. On the destruction of the OCStation, the AI droped a "look behind you" as the whole hack response team invaded the friendly side of the bridge on RingI... by the undefended wormhole because of the gateraid. Silly me...1:45:58Vampire claws rushed the energy generator. FField is down, OCStation follow, I hear the shark roars and realize EtherJets are useless without energy. Great... At least, all

<more giggling>

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17 (hand-counted) missile guardians are chasing the DataCenters' raiders. My multitasking is proving good enough to outmaster the SF one. They outweight me in sheer firepower, but... it feels good to know you're not behind your opponent on every topic.

The warhead is 20 seconds from completion but metal is now failing. Plan is to cancel it and wait for brighter days.WHAT? I didn't get my metal back? IIRC, when I cancel a half-built starship, I get back all (I think) my metal. However, when I re-order an armored warhead construction, it starts at 20 seconds remaining (counting engineers). Well, so much for W.M.D. canceling.

Yup, I ran into that too in AS:II. I was livid.

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However, with the hacker built a only the three raiders II, the two enclaves and one heavy bomber online, I'm left with only 208 energy! (Damn, the warhead use 50,000!)

Now you see why I always run such a big buffer of metal and energy in my games. I like always being able to pull a warhead or three out of my hat at a moment's notice.

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What the hell?!? The twins are here!!!Fall back! Load the warhead!2:27:42Twins are ashes!

<cheer!>

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However, the Fire just spawned a ZBombard Design Backup on the A-prime I just hacked. Are we out again? With 20 HaP for the first corruption, it's a yes. So sad I can't afford to download them.

I hate those things with a passion when the AI has them, they are inordinately dangerous unless you scare them with a few turrets on the backside of the wormhole to force them towards your main defensive line. They are on my instant-corrupt list when they unlock.

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Energy balance at 8. (Yap, one digit energy balance.)

LOL!

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FField MkII midlife after only some hit of the missile guardians. These guys are to be underestimated under no circumstance.

Yup, they do astronomical damage. I think the lower tier does something like 10,000 damage and it goes way up from there. I found they were easily as dangerous as the H/Ks, the only upsides were they are lower health so regular Lightning warheads are fine to use on them, and they can be nuked.

Keep it up!

« Last Edit: May 03, 2015, 06:21:15 AM by Red.Queen »

Logged

Infiltrating hostile AI networks to rewrite reality.

[[Hacks available from this unit found on the AI War Modding subforum.]]

Recently reopened that game but had to almost immediately close it because something came up, however I thought the tachyon turret line lacks a MkIII member (it's the only one to have a column of only two members on the build screen). I imagined it with a very large tachyon coverage but with a very low cap, like HBC or fortresses, something to put on a home or chokepoint planet. As it was a simple and precise idea, I directly posted it on mantis.

Anyway, this stealth-themed game is very entertaining. A bit low because of the MkIII/IV worlds line and few metal, but I'm not uncomfortable with that kind of slow game. Yeah, not very outa my tracks for a (s)low AIP player like me, but the teleport/stealth and fire/ice setup (+nomad +alarms +hack) is really disturbing (read " !!disturbing!! ").

Recently reopened that game but had to almost immediately close it because something came up, however I thought the tachyon turret line lacks a MkIII member (it's the only one to have a column of only two members on the build screen). I imagined it with a very large tachyon coverage but with a very low cap, like HBC or fortresses, something to put on a home or chokepoint planet. As it was a simple and precise idea, I directly posted it on mantis.

It is kind of weird it stops at Mk.II. Sounds like a Mk.III would pair nicely with a Logistics station if you were going with those instead of Military and were willing to pay the extra K for the Tach turrets.

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Anyway, this stealth-themed game is very entertaining. A bit low because of the MkIII/IV worlds line and few metal, but I'm not uncomfortable with that kind of slow game. Yeah, not very outa my tracks for a (s)low AIP player like me, but the teleport/stealth and fire/ice setup (+nomad +alarms +hack) is really disturbing (read " !!disturbing!! ").

<g> But everything is so peaceful and quiet, just look around, do you SEE any enemies? No!

I expect you'll be jolted off your low-AIP tracks soon, after all, you'll be needing more HAP soon... Unless you plan on trying to brute-force hack?

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Next hotnotes incoming soon!

<eat popcorn>

Logged

Infiltrating hostile AI networks to rewrite reality.

[[Hacks available from this unit found on the AI War Modding subforum.]]

3:00:00First A-prime down. Everything is quite.HaP: 31AIP: 36Knowledge: 12,250Empire: 6 planets (1 home, 1 nomad plus 4 other), 4 on RingI and 1 on RingII.Unlocks: Raid Starship MkIII and older.Economy a bit low; one metal converter online, not every starship MkI built, many turrets MkI on many planets.Plan is to get Nomad 4 which is now adjacent to my territory. Raid SShips already did a great job; two Needlers (IV) and one SSSphere GPosts protecting a parasite eye.Then continue capturing planets on RingI, spining clockwise; first of them is an Ice's bunkerer with a ZEBomber DBU which will be ignored, unfortunately; then a Fire's A-prime with a Vampire DBU that WILL be downloaded for 75 HaP that I plan to have by the time (with one more Alarm destroyed after the ASC world); and then the ASC world itself, maybe involving a DGLair epic battle.Then capturing this A-prime on RingIV would be the first step toward an archipelago empire; I hope I'll find interesting stuff after this planet, under the scout-fog, near the A/A' bridges. More tachyon raid would be required because I think Nomad 2 won't dive to the core soon.

3:09:58Sniper-beachhead on Nomad 4 was effective at getting the needlers and the eye down, with help of the starships.However, the MkIV barrack opening turned pretty bad: many starships went off and the intervention of the (vastly outmarked) fleet was required. Big reprisal waves are declared, but with the current AIP level and my heavy (albeit MkI) defense, I decided to ignore it.The battle started to balance in my favor when 40 marauders decided to come and bully my weakened fleet.Cherry on the cake: Nomad 4 is currently under an Alarm range; I'll need to wait for it to move deeper in my territory before taking over it, which is why I absolutely need to maintain this beachhead against the (sniper immune) marauders.3:12:16Marauders are now mostly destroyed but they wreaked tremendous havock in my fleet. Luckily it was quickly rebuilt but a siege starship in a reprisal managed to take down Back's OCStation, which is currently the only supplyer of the Nomad-4's beachhead, which is now offline. Metal converters were emergency-built, and luckily there is no more big threat on Nomad 4. (I hope the SForces aren't plotting anything tonight.)Such a pitty, the reprisal wave is already ashes. I feel like there is something unfair at stake: my defenses were more than enough to hold this, and yet I'm heavily punished (energy brownout and unsupplied beachhead). It's not like if siege starships were a very special pain-plot that I enabled...

3:20:33Nomad Planet Wormhole Links Have Changed.Time to take over my second Nomad.Also, a 157 ships CPA is massing, hitting in 7:30.

3:23:24Low metal. Such a pain. I need a MkIII raider to take down this MkI ion canon under the Bunkerer heap of guard posts (gravity, sniper, missile, ...) and (OMG) 4 MkIII FFields to setup another beachhead (this beachheading is quite out of my tracks, good). But my metal deposit per planet is 12 (home), 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and 1. This is near 2.5 per planet, not counting home. Seeded average quantity of metal per planet is usually around 4, ranging from 1 to 7~8. I feel particularly unlucky. Moreover, I need to supply two WJammer OCStations. Believe me when I say one MkIII raider is a huge investment.My turrets on Nomad 4 aren't all out and my metal is already grounded.

3:38:38Raiders were sent neutering the second A-prime (let's call it A-second), one hop after the bunkerer. As there is almost only Missile and MLRS GPosts (and one counterattack... MkIII), the plasma eye won't be a problem.However, the 4 MkIII FFields will take an eternity to break. I hesitate between unlocking sniper MkII or the translocation-immune Zenith/Spire SShips pair (SStealthBShip are also translocation-immune), or maybe go for a sabotage, however my HaP is quite precious in this long run of downloads. (Also, I'm growing convinced that downloading at least 5 DBUp is beyond possible in a normal game. We'll see where we'll be when download cost would be astronomically high...)

3:40:3015 Dissassemblers bumped in A-second.Raiders on the run (one Missile GPost and the Counterattack were left alive). Armored warhead loading (and its own metal converter setup). Fleet commited to defense at Ice's bunkerer.I was thinking this fourth hour was too quite. SForces and PVegas are in the place to make it !!fun!!3:42:26Scout reports SForces are gone. Better let this warhead finish, just in case the devil would be more evil.Fleet waiting on Ice's bunker; raiders sent back to work.3:45:08Oh, look like I was wront by a factor of 10 about warhead's cost. MkIII raid starship is 328,000 and armored MkI is 1,000,000. ><(Attack/Health were divided recently... I feel like it would be nice to divide metal by 10 for the next expansion.)Obviously, warhead construction was paused. SForces aren't showning up any more.Anyway, Counterattack triggered (10 minutes, targeting home) and plasma eye vanished.For the 4 FFields bunker, I'll save-try a cloaked lightning warhead MkI.3:48:47The lightning did it! While the FFields are still mostly unafected by it, everything under them but the (Translocator) OCStation, the WGate and the DBUp is metal dust. Now it's time to throw everything that is translocation-immune at it! Wait... Forget about the translocation-immune; throw everything!3:52:09Okay, maaaybe it wasn't the best idea I had in my life. But job's done! Mostly thanks to the raiders, but they needed something to divert the translocation shots. A 228 ships reprisal wave is perfectly lining up with the counterattack. If I was fighting a human, I would hardly suspect him of using some sort of bot.CPA just vanished, if you were wondering. I don't know when, but I once saw a carrier roaming my frontier but when I bring my fleet to play with him, he silently walked away. Now my threat indicator is very low and I can't remember an unexpected wave somewhere. Maybe my heavy energy investment in turrets is worth something, after all.The Home Counterwave is only 16 ships, albeit MkIII. I'll concentrate my fleet on the reprisal one and come for help if things go badly... Wait, if things go badly on my homeworld... Never mind. I'll concentrate my fleet on the reprisal and I'm sure nothing would go badly on my homeworld. ( I bet I can do politic like this.)

4:00:00One more nomad planet; one more step on RingI.HaP: 74AIP: 79Knowledge: 17,250Empire: 8 planets (1 home, 2 nomads plus 5 other), 5 on RingI and 1 on RingII.Unlocks: Zenith Starship MkI, Spire starship MkI and older.Things are going accordingly to the plan, however a bit slow, I think. Ah, too few metal (12,5,4,3,2,2,1,1 now, and A-second will also be 2).Also, I feel I stash too many knowledge, but I lack the metal and energy to supply everything. I unlocked the Z/S starships because of some idea passing by, but I didn't built them yet. This K isn't wasted, but I really feel tight in this game. I hope I'll be able to scrap some turrets on RingI when I'll reach the ASC to save energy for my fleet, but metal will always be an issue. The plan is to go starship and micro enough to optimise metal spent per kill.

4:00:13Planet wormhole changed. 2 is on RingI and RingII, away from unscouted territory. 4's wormholes are all connected to my territory.

4:02:27Vampire download on A-second with 74 HaP in bank, needs 75. Raiders gone on the Ice's DGLair world after Fire's ASC to blow up an Alarm. Raiders MkII were sent to escort MkIII which was sent to oneshoot the alarm. The MkIII fortress took it down in one salvo: warning reprisal and alarm death-triggered (on a MkIII world). Great.4:03:24Beachhead building, my fleet torn apart by EtherJets, Fire send 300 ships reprisal, Ice still has a level 1 warning, economy already faceplanted by MkI rebuilding (oh, beachhead!), Ice's alarmed ships joining... Oh, and some marauders are attacking my world just behind A-second (reinforcememnts are handling them).SForce detected on RingIII heading... Away from the hacked world? On no, wait, there is only one AI-controlled bridge between RingI and RingII, so I guess they are going the long way. Make me think that if I take that bridge (at least one half), SForce won't be able to reach RingI and if I hunt down every SForce GPost on RingI, it'll be out of SForce reach... unless they use a nomad as a bridge. Ah, if the planet behind Back would have been neutered and I have more economy for a bigger army, I would have sent them a nuke on their path... (Intel gathering... Sooo important... I'll do AAR for every game, even if I don't post them)Anyway, SForces Intel Report: 20 Missile MkII, 9 Riot, 2 H/K (mind you) but no Disassemblers for now.4:05:56Downloader took down one minute before completion, hacked following. Overwhelming EtherJets and pivot Spire Starship MkIII. Let's rebuild and reconsider this hack. Beachhead is ashes.4:06:54250 chameleons (and some MkIII nastinesses) on my tractors, one hop next to A-second. Turrets are doing wonders but offender is overwhelming. 130 ship reprisal toward RingII's bridge end, 550 on Back. Economy abysmal: don't even think about lightning warhead. Fleet nearely empty (good, I have energy!).4:07:19OCStation down. Good thing the sharks are not there.4:09:47Back's defense is doing wonders... BUT THAT DAMN SIEGE STARSHIP KEEPS KILLING THE OCSTATION IN TWO SHOTS!!! THIS IS UNFAAAAAIR!!!80 HRFighters spawning on Back. RingII attack is ashes (but the damn missile-immule leech). 100 Chameleons and the MkIII Zenith SShip (22%) hammering my furthest world below A-second. Economy unable to keep up.4:12:54AAAAAAAAAAAH! THIS DAMN ZENITH SSHIP REFUSE TO DIE!!!The HRFighters are loose and some decided get this far-end world back now. I sacrificed my half-fleet to suport them: the chameleons were already badly damaged and were quickly achieved, but the MkIII SStealth BShip are tough and THE ZENITH SSHIP IS 3% OMG KILL IT NOW!!! And the HRFighters continue to suicide one by one on it while tring to scratch the SStealth BShips. ><4:14:14Zenith SShip finally down, but HRFighters continue to suicide on SStealth BShips. I sent my pathetic fleet at them (maybe 20 units) and... oh, they are not immune to tractor beams... Come to my unscratched world one step behind, I'LL MAKE YOU SUFFER FOR ALL THE METAL YOU ARE COSTING ME!!!4:16:00Economy still below zero. I have no starship and barely 40 fleetships. I feel the game isn't giving me the weapon to fight it. No: I feel the game isn't giving the very basic tools to even play! I have more knowledge than I can spend, I have enough energy to support every single planet with full cap of all MkI turrets (I'm lacking energy for fleet but its a choice) but I'm lacking the very minimum metal to play! It's not the first time: I trully feel the earlygame economy is unbalanced. It's not a question of difficulty: it's a question of "I feel unable to PLAY"! And it's UNFUN!(Sorry to rage, I'll calm down, but I'm sincere. It's not difficult, it unfun.)Two 50 ship regular waves hit RingII bridge one after the other, but it's a breeze. FField isn't even scratched.4:18:30Sloooooooow rebuilding. And that damn stupid RRebuilder going back and forth between snipers and forward turrets. I should be having an epic hacking fight with the AI, and instead I'm looking at that morron.

4:24:32"Fleet" rebuilt, 0 metal. Well, 5 caps of MkI ships (and no starship) that are barely able to hold the enemy for more than one minute. Call that a fleet if you want. I can't wait for the starships. I don't want to wait for the starships! Salvage is supposed to solve that "unfun waiting during rebuilding". Guess what? It's not.

4:30:25ARS on A-second contains NYWeasel, Infiltrator and TackleDL. Know what? I'll redirect it to spare the latter expensive infiltrator download.But what I need now is metal. More metal. I'll go for a tachyon carving and aim to take something near the distant RingIV A-prime to begin my archipelago empire. But wana know what? I'll need metal for the raiders!

4:35:03Two MkII raiders are ready to launch for tachyon carving. (10 minutes for being able to play again.)

4:38:51Tachyon rampage turned short: after one world, there is a OMDriver + Eye combo on Ice planet, just adjacent to RingIII A-prime.SForces apeared on RingIII going counterclockwise toward RingII and maybe RingI. 2 H/K, 16 Disassemblers, 15 Riots, 20 Missiles. Is there a point in killing them? They seems to spawn as soon as down to reach a fixed amount.Changing my mind about immediate capture, I wonder if I won't take over Bridges II-A and II-B: there is 3 core constructors and 7,7,6,6,5,1 metal deposits, and it would let only one bridge between RingII and RingIII for AI not that far... Maybe I'll won't play as stealth as planned. Being bullied like earlier makes me want to take revenge. I wouldn't go archipelago and low-AIP, but rather fully connected territory and high AIP. Moreover, taking bridges and cutting route to SForces would be my pleasure.However, there is a CoProc on RingII and I want to find the other. So tachyon carving first. <sigh>

4:40:46Twinws passing by the bridge after Back, still spining counterclockwise.While looking at the tachyon carving possibilities, I realized that the OMDriver is on a wormhole, and if my raiders manage to get to it from RingIV and counterclockwise, they would warp on the OMD and eventually blow it up with not too much damages. While this is doable by taking Bridge III-B, it would a long road and considered a deepstrike. But now there is Nomad 1 making a shorter route. It also would be the ocasion of getting rid of the SForces GPost and Tachyon Sentinels on Nomad 1. Let's do this. The (lonely) raider MkIII just joined up the team.Little update: 23 missile for the SForces.

4:44:25OMD down! MkIII and one MkII sacrified, Ice reprisal level 2, Strategic Reserve deployed (Oh, I didn't told you? This bridge-end has the Superterminal!). Note to self: the eye is a translocator one; not the worst (albeit still bad as an eye).So bad, I just have the metal for a second MkIII raider, and it would just be a rebuilding...

4:47:37Strange: threatfleet follow the same path as SForces. I tried to intercept some Bridge II-A but find some StdFighters ahead on the bridge after Back.Ice's reprisal is less than 200 ships: no problem.

4:49:24Marauders attacking Bridge II-B, waking some threat.16 Disassemblers on same world, still spinning clockwise.4:51:00I love bullying AI when they are down. Marauders are down: my fleet enter the ring.4:52:01The twins enter the Bridge II-B ring too. Time to get out, but the bullying was paying.The four raiders and the two heavy bombers are assaulting the fortress after Back. The bombers blew up two Missile Guardians and the MLRS GPost under the fortress but 200 bombers handled them. Red announce reprisal 1 but the trade seems ok to me. I'll bring my firgates next time. Let see how 2x cap and Mk+1 is weak against the matching triangle ship.(Haha, enclave drones scratched the paint of the twins!)4:55:12Okay, 3 MkII leeches were more than enough to make the balance change. Also, many EtherJets were anoying but not very dangerous. Anyway, the 200 bombers are now 190, and there is 90 MkI firgates, but they provided a very efficient distraction: the heavy bombers were alone on the fortress... Until the Disassemblers came in. Fortress is 80% but I better move now; fortunately bombers are faster than the disassemblers.4:55:49Agh! Not fast enough. Turning around the wormhole, trying to lure the disassemblers away and manage an oppening, some HRFighters came suicide here and the disassemblers were going toward the wormhole.4:59:10One MkII Raider down, both bombers down again; Fortress 50%.

5:00:00No progress in one hour. Not even on the scouting table. Bad hour. Very very bad hour.

5:00:39Threat cleaning mission nearly turned to nightmare when 50 EterJets uncloaked and took my fleet away. Thankthfully, there weren't many more than my former frigates and some SStealth BShips.

5:04:37Fortress after Back: busted. Mission accomplished.Double border aggression on BridgeI. My fleet was engaged with a regular wave on Back, but (1) the wase was easy enough for my turrets to handle it alone and (2) I doubt the combined little threatfleets would be able to overwhelm my turrets on BridgeI. Let see how they do if I hold my fleet back?Arh! Two eyebots were enough to take the OCStation down under the MkII FField. >< Energy borwnout.5:06:47Two metal converters built; fleet warped in. Two MkII starleeches fled but were pursued and killed. Damn, even MkII and overwhelmed, they managed to take me some ships. Why my starleeches are never that good... Maybe I should unlock some high mark.What did we learned so far? Eco OCStations on frontier sucks, but I can't afford to lose their energy and metal. Starleeches are great: unlock higher mark more often. Take more territory and more metal: you need it, badly. It's late, you're exhausted: you should go to bed... I'll post this before, it won't be too long.

5:18:40The raiders were sent for some tachyon carving, just to the edge of the deepstrike threshold. Scouts were sent in the carved path and located a Spire Archived (with a DGLair) and a core world (with a DGLair too); one home is suspected to be on the far side of RingV.Nomad4, spining clockwise, was in AI territory and is currently under Fire&Ice attack; I suspect threat from tachyon carving, because there is too few threatfleet near BridgeI. Turrets did their job and foes are fleeing Nomad4.

5:21:32A threat cleaning after BridgeI turned short when the twins warped in. A barracks was poped earlied and its content is now mostly ashes; the twins just forced me to back a bit earlier (thankthfully their range is pretty short).3 DataCenters and 3 CoProcessors are in scout range, but deeper than deepstrike range. Maybe I'll afford the deepstrike cost for some AIP reduction (86 is quite high for me, mind you ).Oh, and the 6 MkII/MkIII raiders are online. My metal is still low but I plan on building the Z/S starships I unlocked (very) earlier.

5:24:07Raid on Superterminal planet -> Strategic Reserve deployed -> note to self: there is Powerslaver and Spider Bots in the Reserve!

5:27:34One raider MkIII was busted by a fortress on a wormhole, but the tachyon sentinel was blown. New scouting options available.

5:31:0616 Dissassemblers, 20 Missile and 2 H/K in SForces; no data on Missile and Riot.

5:34:51Ice home detected on expected far side of RingV.

5:39:10The RingI end of the remote BridgeI is now under human control. RingI is now entirely cut from the rest of the galaxy. Time to hunt down SForce GPosts on RingI. "Back" now designate this planet.There is two DBUp adjacent to this new Back: Autocanon on RingI that I must download and SStealth BShip on RingII that I must corrupt. I don't plan on doing that now but I would be able to beachhead-hack them later.5:39:30Disassemblers warped in. Hard times coming.5:40:0213 Disassemblers, 20 Missile, 25 Riot, 2 H/K.6 Starships swallowed (Zenith and Spire are safe) and no frigate made it to former Back.Needless to say, the new Back is now ashes. I can't afford 1,000,000 metal for a 2 MDeposit planet.I thought taking a planet fast enough would prevent SForces from attacking it. WRONG.5:41:29SForces near BridgeII-B, spinning counterclockwise, away from Back. I would love to fast-rebuild Back but my metal faceplanted again.One Resistance F/B just suicided on Back's ashes. There is only one left.

5:43:52Starships digested, triggering reprisal level 2: 300 ships within 3 minutes.Raiders sent to clean threat on Back.5:48:04The reprisal was 300 vampires. They passed through tractors and FField, scratched the paint of the OCStation and the ECollector, then flew. Is this a very-clever-AI-strategy? Making me thing it's dumb to better kill me latter? Then 40 marauders spawned, letting me know that human brain is better at recognizing bulling oportunities.5:49:19AI wave warp in: 150 EtherJet were insta-ashed by the MkI lightning turrets.Let humans handle human problems, AI!5:50:2350,000 metal in bank and fleet rebuilt (but the starships; I just have the survived Z/S twins). And... MARAUDERS DON'T COUNT AS SCRAP!!!Damn! This game is arid and give me nothing to fight it! Fast-rebuilding isn't for today (and WMD-busting the twins isn't for tomorrow neither).

5:52:34Fast-rebuilding with 100,000 metal on Back.Also, OCStations were switched to military (from economic) on BridgeI and near A-second.

6:00:55Raiders are deepstriking. Technically they're not, because Nomad4 is on the far side of RingI and RingII.Two MkII are busted, one MkIII is back home with 8% health. 4 planets on RingI has been carved out from tachyon, SForce GPosts, and mostly neutered.

6:07:38No more tachyon sentinel on RingI.No more SForce GPost on RingI.

6:12:23Lot of threat (no doubt due to the deepstrike) is attacking Nomad4. Let see how turrets MkI handle this 1,500 strength invasion.Vampire claws assinated the EGenerator (the tachyon coverage on this planet is rather poor because of the moving nature of the wormholes).Crap! Two heavy bombers MkII were enough to take down the FField MkI.No more power supply on Nomad4. Turrets frozen with 1,100 strength remaining. I'm sure they could have coped with them if the OCStation has been covered by a MkII FField. However, I'm short on MkII FF; maybe I should unlock the MkIII? However, there is some planets that are now backwater: I can scrap some FF and put them on the nomads.

6:19:02Threat cleaning party ended badly. Only the SShips made it to friendly space. Guess what's worst than EtherJets? Tractor Guardians!Fire anounce a riprisal level 2 and drop below zero. However, I'm left with only half the fighters, half the bombers and some SStealth BShips to rebuild (the rest has been paid by my thin metal buffer).

6:24:29Reprisal is scrap being salvaged, by now.Also, the wreaked Nomad4 is used by AI as a bridge between RingI and RingII, however I see nothing scary by now. I need to rebuild and fortify it before I go back to hacking stuff on RingI. The fortresses would have been an option if their metal cost wasn't that high.I figured out that there is a tachyon-free path to the planet with a CSG A-prime on RingIV; I sent a stealth lab to see what's in the ARS: Anti-Armor, NScapegoat and ZSiegeEngine. I think to remember that Anti-Armor are depreciated by most players...

6:28:09Wohoo! Backstab! I was cleaning threat counterclockwise from RingII's bridge when threat attacked from clockwise from RingII's bridge. However, they're already fleeing; the military OCStation was useful.Hey! Also one little backstab on Back.

6:32:48Alarm death-trigger two hops after RingII beachheading planet.6:33:13AI OCStation raid-sniped, alongside with a CoProc, one hop after RingII beachhead. 16 Disassemblers cross the way with the swallow-immune raiders. The twins are just some seconds behind.6:36:18This time SForces didn't came to stop the takingover. They are currently near Back's bridge.

(OMG there were two Alarms on Ice's adjacent planet! Well... I'll destroy it after and we'll say I didn't triggered, right? You know, related to the achievement and the 50% death-trigger chance...)

6:41:31248 MkII ships freed in CPA. 224 MkI ships added from SReserve.A carrier carrying 225 just spawned on RingII, adjacent to me. Let's go!Hey?!? Did I see red TeleLeeches?Hey! 80 ships dragged under my turrets by the EtherJets! Looks like I'm getting used to them.Ouch, 24 Riot bapping by. Better stay off their way and watch out the twins!30 SStealth BShips MkII >< They are supposed to be capped at 5. Ouch. The total cap a human player can have is 20 (MkI-IV, not counting V).Oh, and 40 Marauders jumped in the fight. I'd better let them deal with the AI (and the AI deal with them): Fall back!!!Some seconds latter, there is no more Marauders, and the SStealth BShips are 22; still a lot.Also, 12 more Riot and 20 Missile are passing by...My economy faceplant on fleet rebuilding again... I'm getting used to it too. At least, no starship was lost.

6:47:00AI OCStation blown up past Bridge II-B. My metal isn't yet up to handle its fast-capture, but this part of the plan is done.Also, while I now have more metal deposits (7 already and 5 on the very recently freed planet), I'll unlock the Harversters MkII. It's 4,000 K but this game is going to be Knowledge-intensive and I can't spend it elsewhere while my metal eco is so low.6:47:28The twins are there (plus 16 Disassemblers and 38 Riots); they made it fast! Raiders on the run, caught in the act.6:48:14A 247 Carrier is on the other side of the sector, near Bridge II-A.6:49:54Ready for the EtherJet trick. And yes, Fire got TeleLeeches, TeleRaiders, TeleBStations, and Ice's LGatlings. However, there is blue MFrigates and ZEBomber in the carrier. Strange.6:50:49Ouch. Not enough EtherJets. And they are way too fragiles for this job. Yeah, I know, that's why Spire Tractor Platforms were invented, but they lack EtherJet's speed.75% Fleetwhipe. Luckily my metal buffer is (mostly) ready to handle this. But threat is still overwhelming on the other side of the wormhole...

6:54:40Threatfleet split itself: a big part is waiting near Back's bridge, and a little part stayed near Bridge II-A.The far end of Bridge II-B has been fast-built (and a core Impulse Reaction Emitter fab has been captured). My eco is lifting off! With the new harvesters and the upgrade, I more than doubled my income!6:55:45Threat on Bridge II-A was quickly hammered. Meanwhile, threat on Back's bridge invaded Back. Let see how the turrets handle them.6:56:54Well. My tractors are very well placed, but my snipers need relocation. They are build on the side of the planet and draw invaders away from the tractors: I need to place them far behind my OCStation. I already knew it, but it's okay now that I get the metal!And threat is now below threatening threshold.

6:29:27Such good times deserve a good reward. I have Knowledge: 19,250 +3,000 available. MkII are unlocked for SStealth BShips, EterJets and Frigates. No Starship is unlocked for now; I'm not decided on how to improve them. Maybe a leech, but it will wait until I get this ASC.

7:14:06A good deepstrike and tachyon carving. Threat is a bit up bby now, but nothing like a CPA. I can handle. Scouts were sent in the breach: 3 more planets on RingVI, but despite Fire's infiltrator's DBUp (I'll get them by the ARS), noting of interest.However, the energy is begining to be scarce. Plan is to scrap most turrets on inner worlds and having a hard shell of Military OCStation + full turrets.Also, I've seen some SForces crossing Nomad4, using it as a bridge between RingII and RingI (Nomad 1 and 3 are orbiting deeper). And I didn't realized that now that the Warp Jammer OCStation is gone, it put planets on alert. This is not a bad thing because it dilute reinforcements. However, I'll need to take it back and fortify it much more (I plan on unlocking Fortresses for it) and deny AI and SForces to bridge in RingI (and maybe RingII, one day).Anyway, time to go to sleep.

AIP 36 at the 3 hour mark. HOW. I blow past that by the 30 *minute* mark!

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(sniper immune) marauders.

Marauders are sniper immune? <takes notes>

3:20:33Also, a 157 ships CPA is massing, hitting in 7:30.[/quote]

CPAs can be this small? The smallest CPA I have ever seen was 10x this size... Sub-80 AIP really makes a huge change in the game.

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Seeded average quantity of metal per planet is usually around 4, ranging from 1 to 7~8. I feel particularly unlucky.

I feel your pain, current game for me is unlucky on resource seeding vs. capturables. Hopefully you'll catch a break soon!

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(Also, I'm growing convinced that downloading at least 5 DBUp is beyond possible in a normal game. We'll see where we'll be when download cost would be astronomically high...)

Could be, if it is, don't worry about it -- after all, my original challenge was 3x download.

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Obviously, warhead construction was paused.

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For the 4 FFields bunker, I'll save-try a cloaked lightning warhead MkI.3:48:47The lightning did it! While the FFields are still mostly unafected by it, everything under them but the (Translocator) OCStation, the WGate and the DBUp is metal dust.

Yup! Warheads go right through FFs, used that trick at the end of AS:II. Makes me love them even more.

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Now it's time to throw everything that is translocation-immune at it! Wait... Forget about the translocation-immune; throw everything!

<giggle>

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CPA just vanished, if you were wondering. I don't know when, but I once saw a carrier roaming my frontier but when I bring my fleet to play with him, he silently walked away. Now my threat indicator is very low and I can't remember an unexpected wave somewhere.

Ugh, that is always creepy as hell when that happens. Makes me paranoid for the next hour.

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I'll concentrate my fleet on the reprisal one and come for help if things go badly... Wait, if things go badly on my homeworld... Never mind. I'll concentrate my fleet on the reprisal and I'm sure nothing would go badly on my homeworld. ( I bet I can do politic like this.)

LOL!

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Also, I feel I stash too many knowledge, but I lack the metal and energy to supply everything. I unlocked the Z/S starships because of some idea passing by, but I didn't built them yet. This K isn't wasted, but I really feel tight in this game. I hope I'll be able to scrap some turrets on RingI when I'll reach the ASC to save energy for my fleet, but metal will always be an issue. The plan is to go starship and micro enough to optimise metal spent per kill.

Sounds like upgraded Metal Harvesters would work well in this game, even though I know a lot of people don't like them. I personally don't think they're bad, just situational in when they are a good choice.

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Vampire download on A-second with 74 HaP in bank, needs 75. Raiders gone on the Ice's DGLair world after Fire's ASC to blow up an Alarm. Raiders MkII were sent to escort MkIII which was sent to oneshoot the alarm. The MkIII fortress took it down in one salvo: warning reprisal and alarm death-triggered (on a MkIII world). Great.

Yeah, this is definitely a case for Metal Harvester upgrades, since protecting Econo stations is problematic with this config. Opening those up should hopefully make the fun come back, I don't want you to not be enjoying playing this challenge.

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And that damn stupid RRebuilder going back and forth between snipers and forward turrets. I should be having an epic hacking fight with the AI, and instead I'm looking at that morron.

I know you're suffering right now, but dammit that was funny as hell. I just pictured the human commander leading this mission pacing around home command muttering this to himself, glaring out the window at the little Rebuilder innocently doing its job.

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Threat cleaning mission nearly turned to nightmare when 50 EterJets uncloaked and took my fleet away. Thankthfully, there weren't many more than my former frigates and some SStealth BShips.

Interesting watching how much of a pain Etherjets in the AI's hands are. I haven't had it use these yet but I am going to be very wary whenever it finally does.

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Maybe I'll afford the deepstrike cost for some AIP reduction (86 is quite high for me, mind you ).

You are still under 90 AIP! Howwwww.

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The RingI end of the remote BridgeI is now under human control. RingI is now entirely cut from the rest of the galaxy. Time to hunt down SForce GPosts on RingI. "Back" now designate this planet.

That should be a BIG help.

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6 Starships swallowed (Zenith and Spire are safe) and no frigate made it to former Back.

OUCH!!

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Total for adjacent hacking missions: 260.

Wow that is going to get expensive.

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Threat cleaning party ended badly. Only the SShips made it to friendly space. Guess what's worst than EtherJets? Tractor Guardians!

The AI has almost every tractor ship... Or did I miss them unlocking the tractor stations?

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I figured out that there is a tachyon-free path to the planet with a CSG A-prime on RingIV; I sent a stealth lab to see what's in the ARS: Anti-Armor, NScapegoat and ZSiegeEngine. I think to remember that Anti-Armor are depreciated by most players...

Scapegoats would be a big help on conserving the fleet and avoiding the tight resources, if you can swing the HAP.

(OMG there were two Alarms on Ice's adjacent planet! Well... I'll destroy it after and we'll say I didn't triggered, right? You know, related to the achievement and the 50% death-trigger chance...)

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30 SStealth BShips MkII >< They are supposed to be capped at 5. Ouch. The total cap a human player can have is 20 (MkI-IV, not counting V).

Yeah, these low-cap but not starship ships are kind of weird in the reinforcement scheme, I think they need tweaking. They might be valued a certain way, but they effectively punch well above their weight when their numbers go over a certain point.

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Also, while I now have more metal deposits (7 already and 5 on the very recently freed planet), I'll unlock the Harversters MkII. It's 4,000 K but this game is going to be Knowledge-intensive and I can't spend it elsewhere while my metal eco is so low.

Yes! These should help a LOT.

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The far end of Bridge II-B has been fast-built (and a core Impulse Reaction Emitter fab has been captured). My eco is lifting off! With the new harvesters and the upgrade, I more than doubled my income!

<cheer>

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Such good times deserve a good reward. I have Knowledge: 19,250 +3,000 available. MkII are unlocked for SStealth BShips, EterJets and Frigates. No Starship is unlocked for now; I'm not decided on how to improve them. Maybe a leech, but it will wait until I get this ASC.

That is an incredible amount of K. With how fast moving your fleet is, Heavy Bombers might be a good choice to upgrade more more precision problem exploding while your stealthy and teleporting ships tie up the fleet.

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AIP: 180 (floor 56)

Yessss... climb that AIP scale!

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[[Hacks available from this unit found on the AI War Modding subforum.]]

Now it's time to throw everything that is translocation-immune at it! Wait... Forget about the translocation-immune; throw everything!

<giggle>

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I'll concentrate my fleet on the reprisal one and come for help if things go badly... Wait, if things go badly on my homeworld... Never mind. I'll concentrate my fleet on the reprisal and I'm sure nothing would go badly on my homeworld. ( I bet I can do politic like this.)

And it wasn't the first CPA. I totally forgot the first. They are so forgettable at this AIP level. I totally understand your reaction.

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The AI has almost every tractor ship... Or did I miss them unlocking the tractor stations?

Nope, they didn't... yet. And I hope they would never do.

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Scapegoats would be a big help on conserving the fleet and avoiding the tight resources, if you can swing the HAP.

Yeah, maybe. I never toyed with scapegoats. However, I think I won't take them this time; my eco is lifting off and my HaP is scarce (or highly demanded).

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AIP: 180 (floor 56)

Yessss... climb that AIP scale!

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AIP Reducers scouted: 3 CoProcessors, 3 DataCenters, 1 SuperTerminal.

Sorry!

But I will. This game is already one step toward not-so-low-AIP... And maybe I'll try true high AIP in my next OutaTrackGame. Maybe with Spire Civilian Leaders. I already played with them at 7/7, they are interesting in spicing up the early game (10 AIP per hour, its huge! ), but as their effect is reversible, I feel much more mentally comfortable; I don't feel like each second is one step toward irreversible doom, even if I never achieve true AIP reduction because I keep capturing planets faster than they decrease AIP.

7:14:25Impulse Reaction Emitters ordered. In need of energy, I built one metal converter.

7:21:16During a threat cleaning party, the SForces came across. It's time to update data.2 H/K, 31 Riot, 20 Missile MkII, 16 Disassemblers (8 MkI, 8 MkIII).Sounds like a hard cap for H/K, Missile and Disassemblers. I suppose it depends on intensity of the plot, and if the plot concern one AI or both (I'm sure I can hand-count them, I'll find the same number for Ice and Fire). So it sounds useless to destroy them. Sad.Meanwhile, another threatfleet backstabed me. The turrets handle it by far, but 3 DAMN VAMPIRE CLAWS MANAGED TO ASSASSINATE MY E-COLLECTOR! Time for a pair of Metal Converters... How unfun...Well, at least that makes one less threatfleet to hunt.

7:23:09Nomad 2 is also under threat attack. Didn't I said fortresses, earlier? 3,000 K spent! I got 5 of them? Well, two for each nomad and one for... home, maybe, if I have spare metal. (How its good to be able to think "if I have spare metal" and actually relying on it.)7:24:04Seriously. Two eyebots MkII took the OCStation down and froze everything. Speak of fairness... A MkIII Zenith Starship was held back by the MkII FField and the turrets were actively hammering it: this is fun, this is tension because I don't know it the FField will stand the time the turrets kill it, this is good game design. And then two pathetic eyebots came and the planet is ashes: this is bad game design. Command Stations should have more health; or at least not as ridiculously few as 1,000 (999, actually, just to be really ridiculous). I'm serious, and I'll take time to explain why I think so.My MkII FField has 400,000 hp (MkI is 200,000); killing my OCStation require 401,000 damage to destroy, or 1,000 with two eyebots (or vampires). On attack, killing an AI OCStation isn't the issue, it's a go/nogo strategy, the issue is to neuter and afford the AIP cost, and it's fine that AI OCS has few hp, it's not unfun. On defense, however, OCStation is the main target of the AI; defending it takes turrets and FFields and it create a fun fight because the AI firepower is aiming at destroying the FField, and the turrets are aiming at destroying, and the winner is the faster at its task, so the winner is (mostly) unknown before and this makes the fun. But then a handful of FF/tractor immune ships get ignored by turrets, bypass all the fun situation and punish the player... of nothing, just punish him. IMO the solution would be to more balance hp between the FField (what you pay and add to the OCS hp, and what can be avoided by special ships, or hammered much more easily with bombers, for instance) and the OCS itself (the base hp that you don't pay or add, just what the game gives you, the minimum objective for the AI and that cannot be bypassed by special perk). A human OCStation is killed in only two circumstances: by overwhelming assault that wreak turrets, FField and fleet defending it (this is fair, the AI is stronger) or by vampire or eyebot or crap alike, and then it's unfair because their perk allow them to bypass 400,000 hp out of 401,000 (in our example).However, they are counterable by tractors (and tachyon alone doesn't counter them because they get ignored by turrets); however this case is on a nomad planet where conventionalMilitary MkIII OCS solve this problem: they have 90,000 hp, near the half of a MkI FField. However, they cost 9,000 K (3 planets, 60 AIP) and they have low economy bonus (and no Warp Jamming capacity). I would be glad to be able to pay more K for a Warp Jammer that has hp, but maybe the core idea is to pull non-military-OCS from the ridiculous 1/100 hp factor. OCS should be take down by overwhelming firepower (fun), not by f* cheese (unfun).Well, enough for my gamedesign commentary. Back to game.

7:27:14The MkIII Zenith Starship is under the fire of the missile-immune raiders. I can't afford to lose this nomad that is going counterclockwise and away from my territory. (I'll catch and rebuild Nomad 4 when it'll be in wormhole range.)

7:34:24Nomad 2 rebuilt. Fortress will need to wait for the metal to stash a bit more.Counterattack GPost MkIII will be destroyed for the sake of eye destruction (running with scissors, they said... ).7:35:27The twins warped in as the eye implosed. Great timing, raiders!7:36:49Post-neutering threat was EtherJet'ed and hammered home. Then my threat indicator for this planet remained above zero. I checked stealth threat: none. Oh! 40 Marauders! Always up to bully the AI when it's down, right, pals?

7:41:47Yet another attack on Nomad 2. Where is the point is purchasing a paper-string Warp Jammer if it get attacked every now and then?!? Everything is fine unless a MkIV flagship. Raiders sent, but the planet is further and further...7:42:40The flagship was hammered flat but the FField was deep in red and I had to microcheese it to optimize its area (make it patrol on top of the OCStation to center its area with said station).

7:45:30Home counterwave is metal dust. It had one starship and only cloaked ships. Having a pair of decloakers in my fleet is invaluable!Okay, go back to frontier neutering and tachyon carving.

7:46:19SForces are using Nomad 4 as bridge to join RingI. I should pay attention to them because if they turn to threatfleet when Nomad 4 exit AI territory, I want to know it! We've got metal for a fortress? Forget the fortress, now we've got metal for a warhead! (I'm running with two metal converters and I'll need one more? Damn!)

7:49:32What? SForces are on Nomad 1, which is currently RingIII and RingV. However, there is no H/K or Disassemblers, only a crapload of Missile and Riot. I hope there is no two separated SForce Fleets, now!

7:51:30Well, Nomad 1 almost neutered (1 SSSphere remains, the rest was MLRS), and another frontier/fleet neutering is going smooth, while the SForce seems away.

7:56:2216 Disassemblers passing from RingI to RingII by Nomad 4. Looks like the SForces splits itself in two, Disassemblers (and maybe H/K) in one half on RingI, and the other half with Missile and Riot near Nomad 1. Strange.

7:58:30Ouch! 640 ship reprisal wave. Regular waves are around 60 ships, this one is 10 times bigger. I hope there is many younglings in it. Maybe some high mark raiders lost in a threatfleet cleaning mission. (Yeah, threat cleaning went above tachyon carving, recently.)8:00:47Yeah, two plasma siege MkI and the rest was NYCommando. BSN (Big Scarry Number) but nothing trully overwhelming behind.8:01:01The core Impulse Reaction Emitter constructor has been destroyed by a wave I neglected for the BSN wave. I'm not too sad, I didn't liked their face, anyway. (Seriously, a ship that hit harder the ships that use more energy...)Oh, the hour report! And a Data Center was just assassinated by the ongoing tachyon carving mission.

8:00:00Nothing fancy this hour, but many threat cleaning and frontier neutering.HaP: 177AIP: 162 (floor 56)Knowledge: 11,750Empire: (nothing new) 10 planets (1 home, 1 nomad (+1 busted) plus 8 others), 6 on RingI, 2 on RingII and 1 on RingIII.Unlocks: same plus Fortress MkI.Plan? More tachyon carving, end of frontier neutering, then I hope end of scouting (MkII scouts will be reassigned to frontier surveillance; I'm running short on frontier eyes). And then either RingI old plans (hacking and ARS) or deeper diving. Maybe one planet on RingIV? We'll see.

8:02:58Hacking on RingI should be delayed because the previous carving mission gathered a lot of threat (Well, "a lot"... The counter display 300 and I have two planets above 1,000 strength while everything isn't gathered).Ah, if only I have something to move my fleet around... Something that would increase their speed without being a structure (ZSTManipulator or Logistic OCS)... Something without guns...

8:06:41I fear a good part of the threat is in route to Nomad 2. I still don't have the metal for the fortress, and OMD I'll need *2* metal converters to support it! Well, maybe it's time to scrap some backwater turrets.Pause-done. Ouch! From 7,000 to 140,000 with a (almost) full MkI cap. Let's scrap two of these three converters that are eating my metal.

8:10:14Last CoProc (and yap, I blew up one times ago) is found... on RingV, on a core world... with an OMDriver. One MkIII would sacrifice to destroy the tachyon sentinel, the two other would then sneak in and blow the CoProc.The two others are on RingIV and RingIII but a pair of bridges connect them. I plan on sending a raid right now.The hacks would be triggered once Nomad4 is in wormhole range and rebuilt.8:12:59MkII raiders are on their way home: the two CoProc and one Data Center were assassinated in the mission. However, threat is raising again!Faster than Mass Driver! Wohoo! Forget about the sentinel, go-go-go! Only one MkIII was oneshot, the OMD fired a second time, the raiders flew at blazing speed through the void while the iron hulk rushed behind them; the cloak finally triggered and the projectile missed. Two MkIII raiders alive on core world! One will kill the CoProc while the other would stand near the exit, ready to pass through the tachyon field when the OMD would fire at the first.Core raid engine? Ow crap...8:13:32CoProc down! AIP hammered to the floor (64)! One raider MkIII survived! Two MkII made it to friendly space!The full SForce is rushing toward the offended core world. Never mind: my surviving raider would be in tachyon free space by the time it cross their road.8:13:49Ouch! Double reprisal, 5 seconds between each: 330 and 280 ships. Good news: they target my two adjacent worlds on RingII.8:14:54Threat attacked Nomad 2. Two Spire SShips MkI; the rest is ashes but the FField is 50%.8:15:39Nomad 2 clear and safe!8:16:10Ice's Beam Starship in threatfleet on RingIII. I fear this one backstab while the double reprisal hit. Time for some lightning warheads! Warp in 30 seconds! (goodbye, metal; good bye, fortress)8:16:48Each AI made a different reprisal wave. Ice's one is a schizophrenic teleporting wave that (mostly) bypass the tractors; no problem: my defense is designed to handle such case. Fire's one is autocanon only; unlocking the frigate was a great idea! Let see how it unfold.8:17:16Pffft! Done! Total rebuilt fleet is 12 bombers and 14 fighters.

8:18:33The Beam SShip stay put. I'll save the little warhead for latter.SForce passing by, data updating... 2 H/K, 62 Riot (these ones are not caped, for sure), 20 Missile, ... no Disassemblers? Maybe elsewhere or ahead the twins.What? Core frigates in threatfleet? The Reserve can turn threatfleet? Good to know, I'll pay attention, next time.Scout report: Fire's home isn't the middle of the galaxy! (The AI is less megalo than what I've thought...)

8:21:48Main threat cleaned. The Beam SShip was escorted by some other MkIV SShips. The EtherJet trick got rid of everything that weren't tractor-immune before the engagement. Out of my tracks and very interesting!Core world detected on the far side of RingVI (Ice, with a DGLair and an eye). 3 planets unexplored.Nomad 4 in wormhole range. Rebuilding plan triggered.

8:23:44Two more planet scouted, however the MkII scouts won't go any further without some more carving. The last planet is Fire's home.Last A-prime detected on RingVI, aligned with the one on RingV and the one on RingVI. Look like the Bridges A would be preferred to the Bridges B.Also found the second SArchive, in deep Ice territory. I bet this one would be a nightmare to get without triggering the alarms. Maybe I'll sabotage some, after all. But this game promise to be long. Maybe in the 15 hours.Anyway! Nomad rebuilding and then hacking!

8:37:09Design download complete! Hacking response was quite underwhelming. I know there is a bonus: when HaP is more than 100, the response is diminished.Scrap the beachhead! Built another one on RingII! Bring the armored warhead! Wohoo! I'm having fun! (and I'm tired!)The SForce has been seen crossing Bridge II-B inward.8:38:19Hey! 10 Marauders want to tax me: they came by the rear and over the wormhole. I'll need to pass in force.And the energy collector on Nomad 2 has been assassinated. I need a MConverter soon or it'll be wreaked!8:38:37AAAARH! UNFUN! Energy was immediately sent, the FField jumped back, but one eyebot decided my reaction wasn't good enough for him. I HATE YOU!6 hops deep by the shortest path! Damn! I wana cry! Why so unfun! I should have built this fortress... not sure it would have prevented the eyebot...What to do? Send the raiders and wait for rebuilding before triggering next hack? However the next hack is the SStealth BShip corruption on RingII; the SForces would be able to come, anyway. So send the raiders and rebuild, but trigger the hack now.(The RRebuilder has been destroyed, but as RingI is tachyon-free, I can send another one.)

8:44:49Nomad 2 rebuilt.Corruption complete.SForce seen near Bridge III-B.Threat rather high.

8:46:49WTF! Twins passing by Nomad 2! Luckily I was there (supervising fortress's construction; ah, not enough metal) to hold my raiders back. They are traveling from RingII to RingI. I suspect they got their move order when Nomad 2 was busted, however there is no SForce GPost on RingI toward which route the twins... A SFGuardian, maybe. This is really a bad news because they'll cut themselves from the rest of the galaxy. I fear they become threatfleet and/or they attack RingI's hacking team. Good thing these hacks aren't triggered yet.However, threatfleet is... threatening. Especially on RingI-Aprime. I think I'll post and go to bed now. We'll se that latter.

Sounds like a hard cap for H/K, Missile and Disassemblers. I suppose it depends on intensity of the plot, and if the plot concern one AI or both (I'm sure I can hand-count them, I'll find the same number for Ice and Fire). So it sounds useless to destroy them. Sad.

Yup, seems to be a combo of plot intensity, time, and AIP. I saw the SF hitting 48+ Missile Guardians in AS:II, don't know how much higher it would have gone because I kept carpet-bombing/nuking it around that point (in case it helps, up to around AIP 500 on 8/8 with Hunter 4, that was about every 90-120 minutes, though the H/K would rebuild about every hour. Above that, SF building rate roughly DOUBLED in speed). Nasty that it'll put Disassemblers in the SF, I'll remember that. Warning -- it will put Zenith Siege Engines in the SF. Hundreds of them. You can guess what I did when I saw that.

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<eyebot problems>

Moar tachyon coverage to reveal the little buggers! (Maybe Tachyon Warhead?) Hope you can find the Backup to corrupt these things, they are way too dangerous to leave roaming around.

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Counterattack GPost MkIII will be destroyed for the sake of eye destruction (running with scissors, they said... ).7:35:27The twins warped in as the eye implosed. Great timing, raiders!

<laugh>

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16 Disassemblers passing from RingI to RingII by Nomad 4. Looks like the SForces splits itself in two, Disassemblers (and maybe H/K) in one half on RingI, and the other half with Missile and Riot near Nomad 1. Strange.

Weird, never seen it do that. I'm guessing it's caused by how the map is getting sliced up and the way the Nomads keep changing the available paths. Could be useful though, divide and conquer.

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Ah, if only I have something to move my fleet around... Something that would increase their speed without being a structure (ZSTManipulator or Logistic OCS)... Something without guns...

Faster than Mass Driver! Wohoo! Forget about the sentinel, go-go-go! Only one MkIII was oneshot, the OMD fired a second time, the raiders flew at blazing speed through the void while the iron hulk rushed behind them; the cloak finally triggered and the projectile missed. Two MkIII raiders alive on core world! One will kill the CoProc while the other would stand near the exit, ready to pass through the tachyon field when the OMD would fire at the first.

Riots seem to go up to about 76 and then stop, no matter how high you drive the AIP up to, then the AI starts spending its points to buy other stuff. Often low-cap fleetships or higher-cap stuff with something special like cloaking. Watch out...

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What? Core frigates in threatfleet? The Reserve can turn threatfleet? Good to know, I'll pay attention, next time.

Nope, the Reserve despawns when you leave, it had to have come from somewhere else. I bet it's remnants of the Core Raid Engine attack that slipped away after attacking.

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Scout report: Fire's home isn't the middle of the galaxy! (The AI is less megalo than what I've thought...)

I'm surprised I was sure one of the homeworlds was going to be the center.

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Design download complete! Hacking response was quite underwhelming. I know there is a bonus: when HaP is more than 100, the response is diminished.

Good to know!

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WTF! Twins passing by Nomad 2! Luckily I was there (supervising fortress's construction; ah, not enough metal) to hold my raiders back. They are traveling from RingII to RingI. I suspect they got their move order when Nomad 2 was busted, however there is no SForce GPost on RingI toward which route the twins... A SFGuardian, maybe. This is really a bad news because they'll cut themselves from the rest of the galaxy. I fear they become threatfleet and/or they attack RingI's hacking team.

Yeah, I confirmed in my last game that SF pinned in a small bit of the galaxy that's been cut off will definitely drop into Threat. I got lucky when and where it happened, but if they did it in the wrong place and at the wrong time, and at full strength, that could be devastating. Especially if the H/Ks went Threat. <shiver> Imagine 60K+ strength of Threat suddenly appearing out of nowhere...

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Aaaand the screenshot! Nothing to add, maybe. Oh, yeah, 5 DGLairs! And the three A-prime aligned The ZPG, also, because I wonder if I won't get one by the end of this game.

Hey! Your DGLs actually spread out! I've tried turning those guys on twice now and they bunched up every time, it's why I keep turning them off. I guess their seeding on the map gets weird if it's less than 80 planets.

Anyway, keep it up! I'm curious to see how the hell you're going to pull this off.

Logged

Infiltrating hostile AI networks to rewrite reality.

[[Hacks available from this unit found on the AI War Modding subforum.]]

Scout report: Fire's home isn't the middle of the galaxy! (The AI is less megalo than what I've thought...)

I'm surprised I was sure one of the homeworlds was going to be the center.

Yes, me too. However, its entirely logic: the first AI Home is seeded at the furthest planet from any player home. As bridge toward RingVI is near the bridge toward the center planet, the far side of RingVI is the furthest.[]

8:46:57The twins attack Nomad 2. The half-built fortress has been insta-destroyed (bye-bye, metal) and they are routing toward the OCStation. Bye-bye again, Nomad 2. RingI hacking party would be disturbed.8:47:58Nomad 2 is ashes again. 62 Riots are passing by, toward RingI. Looks like the armored warhead won't be useless for long. (One metal converter would be freed! Yay!)8:48:28Reprisal warning level 2? My raiders survived! How? Where? Anyway, 250 ships on Back within 3 minutes...8:51:43Reprisal hit on Back. A handful of vampires shows under the tachyon turret, slip through the tractors and ffields, and assassinate the energy collector. Brownout, metal convertors... I'm getting used to it.The eyebots were freed from the tractors by the short power shutdown and put a dent in the Military OCStation when my EtherJets saved the day. Micro, micro...The wave was hammered flat, but 14 Marauders were attracted by the smell of blood.Also, I realised I didn't built the autocanons! Again one download that put me out of my tracks. Oh, they have armor damage...

8:52:30The RingI BigBrother plan is now achieved! Now that the galaxy is entirely cartographied, the scout MkII have been reasigned to frontier surveillance. So bad there isn't a Special Forces galaxy filter... (Mantis'ed!)Looking at BSN (Big Scary Numbers), SForces are en route toward A-prime on RingI. The warheads are loaded on hop behind. I see no reason for not triggering the hacking...8:54:43Oh, looks like they finally quit RingI. Maybe it's time to seal the nomad bridge and save the warheads for another day.8:54:30Nomad 2 rebuilding, beachhead on A-prime rebuilding, vampire download triggered. I'll be left with 0.5 HaP; ARS Redirection will need to wait.I'm running 5 metal converters and it's still not enough? Damn! Well, Nomad 2 colector isn't back online yet and I'm pulling all I can for fleet, turrets and beachhead (not counting the fortress and the warhead, requiring one planet for them alone: 90,000 for the fortress and 50,000 for the warhead).8:59:30Vampires are downloaded.Economy is still faceplanting but the beachhead will be scraped soon.The SForces were roaming around my RingIII planet like a shark in a fish bowl. Some threatfleet were passing by Nomad 2 to join the hacking party. Nothing big, but I wasn't aware they were allowed to do so.9:01:19Nomad 2 ECollector back on line; A-prime beachhead scraped; only two converters are running now and my metal is stashing again. Vampire claws added to build queue. Hourly report missed; never mind, I'll do it now.

9:00:00So this ninth hour was rather good on many different tables. Galaxy was fully scouted, AIP was hammered flat, 177 HaP has been spent...HaP: 2AIP: 64 (floor 64)Knowledge: 11,750Empire: 11 planets (1 home, 2 nomads plus 8 others), 6 on RingI, 2 on RingII and 1 on RingIII.Unlocks: nothing new.AIP Reduction remaining: 1 DataCenter, 1 SuperTerminal.Cost of adjacent Hacking mission: 52 (1 Research Redirection).Plans: I would love to finish this job on RingI and go back to core diving. However, I'm 50 HaP short for the RRedirection. Ice's home position force me to take the A-Bridges path. This ain't a bad idea, after all: because 3 A-prime CSG are on this path. Hm, looks like I'll also take RingVI ZPGenerator and SArchive, and the center world with the AdvFacto. That would make 12 worlds to capture in a (almost) line toward the core that will put me adjacent to one Ice's core world and the Chameleon DBUp. 10 Alarms would be in the path. So, not counting the auto-AIP or the nomads, that make a total of 12*20+10*5 = 240 + 50 = 290. My genetic AIP fear made my heart skip a beat. Weeeeel, we're on 7/7, nothing can go wrong... Think at all this HaP and Knowledge! And think at all the metal and enegry (wow, the path is only 3 times (out of 12) under 5 metal deposit per planet; so they were there all this time!). Mmmkaaay, okay. Let's play "high AIP". (Well, "pumpkin-high" AIP; we're far from even "Red.Queen-low" AIP.)However, there is a superterminal on the path. The more I think about it, the more I plan on destroying it. It will take away some HaP, spawn a response I'm not yet in position to handle as I would like (little economy, little fleet) and for now that I lie on the AIP bedrock, it will be of no immediate benefice.OK, so there is the plan: I'll take two planets, blow two alarms, neuter two more worlds (this will lead me to my first step on RingIV) and then I'll come back to my hacking on RingI, take two planets (1 A-prime and 1 ASC) and neuter one more (this will lead me to crack open a DGLair; I hope I'll be geared enough for this, by the time).Let's do this!

9:03:22Raid on RingIV: first Alarm death-trigger, SuperTerminal sniped to prevent reserve spawning.9:03:49Second Alarm death-trigger too.9:04:2130 MkIII TeleLeeches took down the unprotected OCStation one hop behind Back. Well, it's the first time Ice is so aggressive.9:05:12OCStation on adjacent planet on RingIII (counterclockwise) has been assassinated by MkIII raiders. Time to handle threatfleet while avoiding SForces. EtherJets, go!9:06:33Back's back re-assassinated by TeleLeeches. Better turn this RRebuilder off and send the SFighters.9:07:00Back's attacked by threat. 60 Vampires MkIII on the go. New planet captured; its ECollector will provide replacement for Back's one that will soon fall.9:07:28What? Everything that is tractor and FField-immune (well, the vampires, indeed) passed to Back's back and are heading toward home. Okay. You wana play like this? We'll play like this. Lightning warhead loading!9:08:30Back is clear. Back's back contains 30 TeleLeeches MkIII and 60 Vampires MkIII, waiting.Core TeleRaiders captured. Sweet, they are good against vampires.FFields are scarce. Hardened FField MkI unlocked (1,000 K).9:09:18Back's back clear. Ready for rebuild.

9:16:40Wave and marauders on my new world. Threat back in acceptable land.

9:20:00One step in RingIV (former SuperTerminal world). Adjacent to A-prime CSG.Omagad! SForces have been waiting there all this time. I was on the top of saying that I would take one Alarm and one more world to get the Anti-Armor ARS, but looks like I'll be back to RingI hacking soon.Time to update their data: 2 H/K, 12 Disassemblers (7 MkIII, 5 MkI; there must be others somewhere else), 21 Missile MkII (one of them must be a regular guard here) and 62 Riots.There is also 2 Ion Canons (1 MkI and 1 MkIII) and a Planetary Armor Inhibitor.

Special Forces massed on A-prime RingIV world.

9:22:39RingIV planet is cheap-defended (sniper and missile only) and Nomad 2 has no fortress, but at least I'm now running without metal converter. I know I'll need one for RingI RRedirection's beachhead...However, I'm 52 HaP and RRedirection require 52.2; I plan on setting off this alarm on RingIV, one step after the A-prime to let me enough HaP to be sure to avoid bruteforcing. Tachyon is carved long ago and the MkIII raiders would have all their way to avoid the stationnary SForce on A-prime. However, if it death-trigger, I'll have a hard time getting rid of the threat there.While looking at the map, I felt good knowing the SForce and threatfleets now have more travel to do to reach one side of RingII from the other.9:23:12Wohoo! It didn't triggered!9:24:05All the 3 raiders MkIII are back home. The SForce made one step backward to see what's going on with this alarm, but found nothing and leaved the sector.9:25:29While they were away, I sent the raiders destroy RingIV A-prime OCStation. Strangely, the SForce came back immediately, but my raiders were already in safe territory. Very Tom&Jerry!9:26:11Disapointed, SForces went away. Time to neuter the planet and claim it.

9:27:19RRedirection triggered on RingI. Beachhead incoming.9:28:14Oops. Un-micro raiders were took down on RingIV. So much for neutering. So much for multitasking.9:37:21RRedirection on RingI is complete. Neutering on RinvIV isn't yet (MkIII Needler GPost is harmful for raiders, there were two of them, there is one now).RingI A-prime is adjacent to a troop-accelerator (Knife-fighter SubCommander), but I'll take it now.9:38:56Vampires in wave on Back provoked a brownout, but RingI A-prime was captured and its ECollector finished soon enough.9:42:13One DNode has been opened to speed up building.9:43:31Back is under a big border aggression (many MkIII). TeleRaiders were sent to defend.RingIV A-prime is neutered. Ready for capture. Two tachyon and one PAInhibitor would be captured.CPA announced. 700 ships.I Micro Back's turrets just in time to take down the infiltrators before the OCStation fall.9:44:23Back survived! Wohoo! Core TeleRaiders were amazing!9:45:54Energy is good, but metal has trouble keeping up: Anti-armor and infiltrators have been added to the queue, and some turret (re)building are processing. One more DNode has been opened.9:45:58All cloaked fleetships has been unlocked MkII: Autocanons, Vampires and Infiltrators (7,500 K total). A second space dock has been built on Home to queue them all.My fleet is piling on RingI near the ASC world. As it's a MkIV Knife fighter, I better be prepared.9:53:34Looses are heavy. But the ASC world is clear and the knife-fighter hammered flat. However, I commited to fight the Dire Guardians soon. Well, maybe not really soon, but soon enough.A (relatively) big reprisal has been triggered (more than 350 ships). Better send the TeleRaiders before I forget.

Ready for knife-fight!

Looses were heavy.

9:56:34Reprisal hit: a bit more than 2,000 strength. Half of my fleet has been detached to handle it; strength a very little notch below 2,000. With the turrets, it should be fin.CPA also hit: 352 MkII + 352 from Strategic Reserve. I've got one carrier with 535 ships past the frontier on RingIII.9:57:10Reprisal is ashes. No a scrath and none survived, but my half-fleet wasn't useless.For the first time I'm getting short on Tachyon turrets MkII and tractor turrets. Maybe I'll unlock tractor MkII, but 10 MkI per hostile wormhole sounds a lot. Maybe I shall micro a bit and downgrade every hostile wormhole to 8 or 7 each (31 tractor beams per turret on MkI, it sounds enough). But latter. 6 MkI tractors on ASC is fine for now.SForces data update: 2 H/K, 20 Missile, 68 Riots, Disassemblers unseen.9:58:12Carrier unloaded 535 ships on RingIII. 3,000 strength, against 2,500 defenders, but turrets are not very well placed; this world was formerly a two-hostile-wormhole and I didn't moved the turrets with tractors/tachyon/lightning/FField combo in front of it. However, there is some (Fire's) teleporting ships...Haha! How fun to look at the TeleLeeches and the TeleRaiders chase each other!9:59:09CPA'ed planet is down. However, no brownout: my fleet wasn't fully rebuilt yet because of low metal. Rebuilt soon; I will count it in the Empire summary albeit it's considered neutral for some minutes.